The Duke of Wellington as Chancellor of Oxford University, wearing academic robes and carrying a mace, instructs his Tory supporters portrayed as academics in gowns and mortar boards. Lithograph by John Doyle, 1834.

The Duke of Wellington was leader of the Tories in the House of Lords when, early in 1834, he was elected Chancellor of Oxford University. His lack of academic credentials is represented by his holding the mace as if it were a gun. On the right, in order of age, stand four politicians. Further from the viewer, as if in faded light, John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon, and his protégé Sir Charles Wetherell stand next to each other: both were Tories opposed to reform of the franchise and to Catholic Emancipation. Eldon had been Lord Chancellor until 1827, but had been excluded from Wellington's government of 1828-1830, while Wetherell had been dismissed from that government. Nearer to the viewer, as if in sunlight, stand the younger pairing of Sir Robert Harry Inglis, Bart and Sir Robert Peel: they were friends and rivals. Inglis opposed the Reform Act and Catholic Emancipation but supported factory reform and the abolition of the slave trade: he is portrayed with "a rosy, corpulent, beaming appearance" (Oxford dictionary of national biography). Peel, shown as leader of the group, introduced many reforms